Monthly Archives: February 2010

In Northeastern India, where it’s nice and wet, bridges aren’t built — they’re grown! The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This tree produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves. In order to make a rubber tree’s roots grow in the right direction – say, over a river – the Khasis, a tribe in Meghalaya, use betel nut trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create root-guidance systems. The thin, tender roots of the rubber tree, prevented from fanning out by the betel nut trunks, grow straight out. When they reach the other side of the river, they’re allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.

Mui-Ling Teh makes tiny origami. She does it by hand!! I remember trying to make tiny paper cranes in middle school but I know they never got down to this size, sheesh. Also, I like the photos. The one below is called “Sailing Along the Lifeline.”

Hey Corny. I’m taking some time off of my [time sensitive] work [that I really should not be ignoring] to draw. It’s just been too much lately, and I need this break. It’s pretty cathartic too, especially with the assistance of STEPDAD. Nick’s roommate’s brother showed us their music last weekend (playing it to accompany Evgeny Plushenko’s short program, in fact, which was hilarious).

I like this “wildlife electro-pop” or whatever they call it and the cheezey-ness just makes it better. Check out the video below, which is awkwardly bad and yet totally great- perhaps listen to the song w/o visuals first.

In line with sheep phones, Baptiste Dembombourg has done some really cool work with staples and catalogues. His site is all in french (and it seems my french skills are getting worse every day) but the images are really great.

Hi Corny, me again!! The pics I uploaded last night were just too ugly, I can’t leave them standing there all by themselves. I do think they’re prettier irl but the computer isn’t doing them any justice. Anyway, wanted to upload something more creative, so here’s my fox.

"turning over a new leaf" (turning the page of a book to a clean sheet)

I’m doing a set of illustrations for my neighbor (Mpls). She’s researching how English language learners learn idioms. The idea of her project is to show a class of ELL students illustrations of the literal origin of idioms, and explain the literal meaning of the idiom. Then, she’ll test whether that helps them retain the knowledge any better than just teaching them the colloquial meaning of the idiom.

I think.

Anyway, it’s kind of fun learning where idioms come from. Some are kind of surprising- like “giving someone the cold shoulder” comes from medieval times; when you wanted a dinner guest to leave for the night, but they were sticking around too long, you’d serve them a cold shoulder of mutton. Gross! I haven’t illustrated that one yet.

"Throwing in the towel" (a coach throws a towel to a dejected boxer)

I mean, they’re very textbook-y. But that’s what I was going for. Straightforward, not creative exactly, and instead just informative and not stylistically distracting. I’m getting paid too, so that’s awesome.

-Kelsey

p.s. the color profile of the files is set to be printed out, and I was too lazy to change it, so the versions showing up on the blog are VERY UGLY NEON COLORS. too late at night to care.

Corny, LOOK at these. They are JUST HILARIOUS TO ME!! These sheep, by Jean-Luc Cornec, are made from rotary phones. That’s why they are awesome. They remind me of this awesome thing Nick and I saw in Millenium Park last year, which was a robotic lawn mower that looked like a sheep. It walked around the lawn and ate grass.